Newspaper apology over Bob Jones gaffe

The Western Mail has apologised after an error in a picture caption which appeared to make light of airport boss Bob Jones’s death in a plane crash.

Bob Jones, manager of Mid Wales Airport, was killed after a light aircraft in which he was a passenger crashed into trees on Long Mountain in January.

A report in today’s Western Mail on the outcome of an inquiry into the accident contained a picture of Mr Jones which was captioned: “Mid-Wales airport manager Bob Jones, 60, who was killed in the crash LOL.”

The erroneous inclusion of the letters LOL – which mean Laugh Out Loud – led to widespread condemnation of the newspaper on the social networking site Twitter.

Freelance journalist Jack Seale nominated it as the worst caption fail of all time, while Western Mail reader Barry Taylor said the paper had sunk to “unacceptable new lows.”

A spokesman for publisher Trinity Mirror said: “The caption error in today’s Western Mail is under internal investigation.